AN application for a road service area and 80-bed budget hotel on land close to Trago Mills met a mixed response on Tuesday. The outline plan includes a petrol station, lorry parking and hotel complex with restaurant, pub and car parking at Pitts Plantation, Ilford Park. It would involve diverting a stretch of the A382 with a new access roundabout. Teignbridge Council's senior planning officer, Carol Walter, confirmed at Tuesday's meeting that the land was designated countryside and the application would be a departure from the Local Plan. She said the site formed part of a previous application by owner Arnold White Estates for a business park. 'They are putting this forward as an alternative to that,' she said. Chairman Cllr David Howe said he did not have a great problem with it and thought it would be useful for the area. 'I am sure that the people of Ilsington will be clapping their hands that it is going from where it was proposed, further up the road,' he said. But mayor Cllr Daphne Watts, was less convinced. 'Do we actually need it, at 20 miles between Plymouth and Exeter? It's going to be totally visible from Dartmoor. Is it really necessary, especially in this location?' she asked. Ms Walter said that Devon County Council was looking at whether there was a need for an additional service station between the top of Haldon Hill and Plymouth. Cllr Watts was worried that a service station in this location would harm the surrounding fragile ecology. Cllr David Corney-Walker said the development would be likely to encourage further industrial encroachment. 'I would only be prepared to accept it if there were stringent conditions retaining all the breaks,' he said. He also called for a Section 106 agreement to incorporate cyclepaths into the scheme. Cllr Geraldine Gaskell feared that B&Bs on the Dartmoor side of the A38 would be hit by the development. The clerk is to write to Teignbridge Council with the committee's views.
